Say What? - Romance Writers Weekly - #lovechatwrite

This week on the blog hop, we’re pulling back the curtain a little on our writing processes. The question is:

Plotter or pantser and why?

It is widely believed there are two main types of writers. “Pantsters” write by the seat of their pants. They just sit down and start typing and see what happens. “Plotters” map out their books like a general planning a military campaign.

I used to be strictly in the plotters camp, working with spreadsheets that listed each scene. But I found that most of my stories veered off in unexpected ways, usually somewhere between the 30% and 50% mark. I learned to embrace that. After all, if I don’t know what’s going to happen, the reader must be surprised, too!

Then a few years ago I took a conflict workshop. In the writing world, conflict is what drives the plot. It doesn’t have to be explosions and gunfights. It can be as quiet as “Will the main female character get the job she wants?” or “Can the main male character learn that showing vulnerability is okay?”

In this workshop, we learned to give our characters a “wound” that needed to be healed. This wound could be caused by upbringing, a traumatic event, or something else, but it was deep enough it made them the person they were. But that person wasn’t fully realized because they hadn’t yet healed from the wound. That healing would be the arc of the story.

Once I started seeing my characters this way, I started to design plots that made those wounds worse until they got better. So while I am still a plotter, I base the action on the character’s emotions, not the things they do. And because character’s need to grow and change, my plots need to evolve as they take me in unanticipated directions.

Now hop over to Leslie Hachtel to see which she chooses in her writing process.

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Will Danson can't stop thinking about his captivating business rival. Camryn Bendixon won't be distracted by the sexy single dad standing in her way. They are competing for construction bids and career-making contracts—but it is her battered heart that he truly wants to win.

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